[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
As LL tests begin to go beyond the limits of older machines, now may
be a good time to consider a distributed factoring effort. I've wanted
to see one for a while now but frankly, implementing many of the
algorithms is over my head. That, and the lack of a permanent home
have made me shelf it. If, however, anyone wants to talk about
donating code or a server, I don't see why we couldn't make one, and
factor some of the unfinished mersennes.
See ECMNet. I'm pretty sure there's a link off www.mersenne.org and
off my mersenne.html. There's a new server/client setup that's
apparently almost as automatic as Prime95/PrimeNet. (I haven't had
time to try it yet). But note that ECMNet is trying to completely
factor various numbers, including the Mersennes with exponents into
the low thousands; it is not trying to find factors of the Mersenne
numbers that GIMPS is interested in. If you want to do the latter,
use Prime95.
In my mind, the v17 bug illustrates how important factoring is. It
provides an easily-verified proof of compositeness.
Yes, and that's the whole reason there is a factorer part of GIMPS:
because having it eliminates possibilities faster, and with no need
for a doublecheck. Factors are very easy to confirm; my 200MHz
Pentium can probably verify every known factor in a day or three (and
I have had it do so a few times in the past).
But Prime95's factoring code has also had bugs at times; a bug-free
program is - as I'm sure most of us are aware - effectively
impossible. Which is part of why there are other programs that do the
same things, like the mers package that I maintain. Prior bugs in the
mers package LL testers and factorers were exposed by comparisons with
output from Prime95, just as prior bugs in Prime95 were exposed by
comparisons with the mers package programs.
Will
http://www.garlic.com/~wedgingt/mersenne.html
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